A “magic lamp” for the thermonuclear “genie”

The terrible and awe-inspiring power of thermonuclear reactions in mankind’s Cold War past may translate into a much-needed supply of inexhaustible energy for the future. Much work still needs to be done, however, as the “genie” of thermonuclear energy will require a strong and reliable “magic lamp” to contain and control its explosive power. Scientists from around the world continue to work together on this very problem.

A scheme of the thermonuclear experimental reactor. Source: Press picture.

On the first day
of November, 60 years ago, the U.S. detonated the world’s first hydrogen bomb
at Eniwetok Atoll on the Marshall Islands. Two days earlier and nine years
later, the Soviet Union literally shook the planet by testing a thermonuclear
device with an unheard of 50 million tons of conventional explosives.

Missile- and
bomb-mounted thermonuclear warheads have since become a mainstay of the world’s
leading armed forces. However, the thermonuclear process will most likely
become not only a tremendously destructive weapon, but also a kind genie that
will save our civilization.

The Earth’s
natural energy sources are depleting rapidly. “The reserves of oil, gas and
uranium, even at current consumption levels, will last for approximately 100
years. We must therefore start looking for alternative energy sources right
now,” said Erik Galimov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Space
Council.

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Humanity needs a
nuclear source of energy, albeit a safe and reliable one. Controlled
thermonuclear reactions, where two light atomic nuclei – such as hydrogen or
its isotopes, deuterium and tritium – fuse together to release nuclear energy,
is a virtually inexhaustible source of energy.

Nuclear and
thermonuclear reactions share an important common feature: both release huge
amounts of energy. A thermonuclear reaction, however, is four times as
powerful.

While it took a
relatively short time to develop and test the hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb,
figuring out a solution for controlling thermonuclear fusion has only become
possible recently – even though the best Soviet and American scientists have
been working on this problem since the 1920s.

The global
community realized in the early 1970s that building a thermonuclear reactor
required broad-based international cooperation. In September 1985, the Soviet
Union invited a number of countries to jointly develop an International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Scientists from Russia, the United
States, Japan and Europe had completed a conceptual design for the reactor by
the early 1990s. An international task force of physicists and engineers,
including experts from Canada and China, started engineering work on the
project in July 1992, under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).

The key program
goal of the ITER project is to demonstrate the scientific and technical
possibility of producing energy from the fusion of hydrogen isotopes deuterium
and tritium. ITER is designed to produce approximately 500 megawatts (MW) of
fusion power at a plasma temperature of 180 million degrees Fahrenheit.

In November 2006,
all ITER project participants – the EU, Russia, Japan, the United States,
China, South Korea and India – signed the Agreement on the Establishment of the
ITER International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of
the ITER Project. Construction of the reactor started in 2007.

Russia’s
participation in the project amounts to designing, manufacturing and supplying
key technological equipment to the reactor’s site in the French town of
Cadarache, as well as a cash contribution equal to around 10 percent of the
total cost of the reactor. The United States, China, India, South Korea and
Japan all make the same contribution.

Construction of
the reactor was initially estimated at $94.5 billion, with a completion date
set for 2016. The budget has since doubled and the deadline for the start of
experiments rolled back to 2020.

Russian
specialists are playing a leading role in the process, since they are first
people in history to have carried out an actual quasi-stationary thermonuclear
plant project with an estimated thermal capacity of around 500 million MW.

The St.
Petersburg-based Yefremov Scientific Research Institute of Electrophysical
Apparatus serves as a base for unique ITER equipment testing. The project is
expected to yield results by the end of November, the Russian ITER agency
Project Center ITER announced.

According to an
earlier statement made by Yevgeny Velikhov, a member of the Russian Academy of
Sciences and president of the Kurchatov Scientific Research Center, Russia is
successfully fulfilling its obligations to the ITER project; its index of
contribution to the project in terms of timing, scope and quality of work is
higher than of any other ITER participant.

Speaking to
journalists at the former top-secret Arzamas-16 nuclear research facility near
Nizhny Novgorod at the end of July 2009, former President Dmitry Medvedev laid
out the scope of work to be done on controlled thermonuclear fusion.

“Thermonuclear
fusion is a long-term project,” Medvedev said. “The creation of a commercial
plant is expected by 2040–2050. The most likely scenario for harnessing
thermonuclear energy involves three stages: achieving long thermonuclear
reaction burn times, demonstrating electric power generation, and building
industrial-grade hermonuclear power plants.”

Yevgeny Velikhov,
secretary of Russia’s Civic Chamber, said in 2007 that the first thermonuclear
power plant was unlikely to appear any time in the next 25 years. Russia is
expected to start generating 1 gigawatt (GW) of commercial thermonuclear energy
by 2050; by the end of the century, generation of 100 GW is estimated,
amounting to more than 40 percent of Russia’s existing power capacity.

For now, however,
what the untamed omnipotent thermonuclear genie needs is a sturdy “lamp.”